Mitt Romney did at least do us the favor of putting a face to legal tax avoidance for rich people.
Warren Buffett's line about his secretary paying a higher tax rate than he does has become pretty famous, and many people know that what he's referring to is that investment income is taxed at a lower rate than the income we work to earn. You might also know that people only pay into Social Security for the first $118,500 of income. But those aren't the only
government handouts via tax code going to very rich people.
The Washington Post's Emily Badger and Christopher Ingraham round up a list of others, like the yacht tax deduction. That's right, if you have a yacht—or, a boat with the facilities to be considered a second home—and you're paying interest on it, the interest is tax-deductible. Or retirement savings funds that aren't taxed. In theory they're open to everyone, but in reality, "about 66 percent of these retirement subsidies go to the top 20 percent of taxpayers. Less than 1 percent go to the bottom 20 percent."
This is my favorite, though. At a time when Missouri Republicans are trying to ban food stamp recipients from spending Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits on steak or seafood, let's talk about tax deductions for business meals:
Imagine that the tab for dinner and drinks for 10 executives comes to $1,600. Current tax law allows companies to deduct half of the cost of business meals — in this case, $800. With a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, each dollar of deductions yields 35 cents of tax savings — so that $800 deduction saves $280 in taxes. This means one dinner for 10 people provides more public food assistance than the $279 an average household receives in food stamps for the whole month.
Funny, isn't it, how rarely we hear this stuff mentioned when "government handouts" are being attacked? It's almost like there's one standard for the poor and another standard entirely for the very wealthy. I'm sure it has nothing to do with where politicians come from, who they're friends with, who they get campaign contributions from, and who can afford to hire armies of lobbyists.
Sign this petition today: Tell corporations to pay their fair share!
